On appeal from his conviction for child molestation, Myron Sheppard argues that Georgia’s child hearsay statute OCGA § 24-3-16 is unconstitutional and was unconstitutionally applied in his case. Sheppard also argues that the trial court erred when it admitted similar transaction evidence without holding a Uniform Superior Court Rule 31.3 B hearing pursuant to Williams v. State , 261 Ga. 640, 642 2 b 409 SE2d 649 1991. We hold that Sheppard has waived his constitutional objections, but vacate his conviction and remand for further proceedings to determine whether the similar transaction evidence introduced against him comports with the requirements of Rule 31.3 B and Williams . “On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, with the defendant no longer enjoying a presumption of innocence.” Reese v. State , 270 Ga. App. 522, 523 607 SE2d 165 2004. We neither weigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of witnesses, but determine only whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, a “rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307, 319 III B 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.
So viewed, the record shows that on Christmas Eve 1992, Sheppard was lying beneath the victim, who was seven years old at the time, when he put his tongue into her mouth and placed her hand on his erect penis. After the victim got up to go to bed in another room, Sheppard followed her into the room, laid down beside her, put his hand down her pants, and touched her vagina. As the family moved from Putnam County, where the first incident occurred, to Jasper County, where the attacks continued, the victim told her mother and some friends about them. For some time, the victim’s mother accepted her husband’s denials. When the victim told her mother some years later about one fondling incident immediately after it occurred, however, the mother confronted Sheppard, who stopped the molestation but denied that the abuse had occurred.
